Thursday, November 5, 2009

Where the Wild Things Are (2009)


A pretty stunning film, on many levels. I feel like Spike Jonze successfully made the film he set out to make. And the creature work was amazing, all the monsters fascinating to watch and imbued with real psychology and feeling. All that said, I'm not sure how much I enjoyed watching it. The filmmakers did such a convincing job of capturing the inside world of a hurt boy that it was almost painful at times. Like being subjected to the grisly crayon drawings from a children's psychiatric ward.

A few nit-picky things: I was disappointed that my favorite bit from the book was not in the film, when Max's bedroom transforms into the jungle. Also, I think they should have gone only with the Carter Burwell score and not had the Karen O songs. Whenever she sang, I was a little pulled out of the remarkable world of the Wild Things. And the credit song - something about love - is pretty bad.

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